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I did a project on St. Valentine once for my 10th grade religion class. My teacher was a nun, and gave me an A- for seeming completely nonplussed about St. Valentine’s martyrdom.

“Are you happy about this Saint, Laura? He dies.“

I wish I had a picture of this nun, complete with sound recording, to show you exactly how distressed she was by my attitude. It ever so perfectly sums up how I am towards Valentine’s day.

I wouldn’t be too surprised too, if St. Valentine was in the same boat as me on today’s culture though — chocolate and hearts and OHMIGOD, I DIED FOR MY RELIGION and all.

Here, in no particular order are my favorite Valentine’s tales of my life, thus far.

1. My first Valentine.

My seventh grade boyfriend and I fostered a great love, that spanned two skating parties, my first kiss, and approximately five months. That’s basically marriage, guys. Love and marriage, Catholic school style. The relationship did pass by a Valentine’s day, which meant we gave each other gifts and stuff — I actually don’t remember what I gave him – color me shocked, as usually I remember everything.

It was probably like…a rhyming poem, typed in size 12, impact font.

But he gave me chocolate and a card. It was very nice, and I remember opening it up, all excited and….

We submitted why we should be allowed to watch hockey on Valentine’s Day.

Men are good at disappointing. There are the men that don’t call, the men that won’t stop calling, and the men that don’t appreciate you. That’s why we want to spend our Valentine’s Day with the Red Wings, the men who have never really let us down. 98 new potentials couldn’t hurt either. This Valentine’s Day, we don’t want chocolates, roses, or even a candlelit dinner. We want cold beer, rowdy fans, and a Red Wings victory. The only red we want to see is blood on the ice.

High school really did more of the same thing that middle school did. Holidays would come around and we would send candy to each other to support like…athletics and stuff. I’m not actually sure where the money we spent went. Except the bon bons. If you bought bon bons, you were definitely supporting the Latin Club and the Latin teacher’s probable drinking habit because my latin class was definitely a reason to drink.

By this point of life, I had realized that I was really socially awkward, and had no idea how I’d managed to straggle successfully through my formative years thus far. I was single probably because of all those things, and maybe because I once tried to make a utility belt out of crushed velvet and the back pockets out of a pair of jeans to carry my pens and TI-83 in.

This utility belt was actually made out of my Halloween 1999 “punk rock” costume.

Weird little L.A.

Imagine my surprise then, and the surprise of my girl friends, when I received a candy-gram.

To L.A.

From: ???

Instead of a message, this person drew an arrow, pointing to the computer printed bear saying Happy Valentine’s Day. We never did find out who sent that one.

4. Nothing says I love you like a text message.

Because the college version of me was so romantic, I chose to send my love not by flowers or candy, but by text.

This was college L.A. You’re probably less surprised that I texted Happy Valentine’s now. Please note that I am wearing an NES wristband and have a flip phone clipped to my pocket.

You are about to learn something. Sort of. You are about to learn something to the extent of my knowledge on the subject. But. Since I went to a Catholic grade school. And high school. And college, for that matter. Sex Ed didn’t really teach as much as I now realize it should have.

We learned instead, that when you grow up, you can either be a priest, a nun, or get married. IF you so desire to get married, then, obviously after marriage, you may have sexual intercourse. Which is an experience between you and your partner in marriage and God.

You know what they didn’t teach us during this class? Condoms. STDS. Unplanned Pregnancy(which really would have helped me out, in my child bearing period of life.). Sexual Reproductive Organs.

FunSized and I were chilling out one night, and we came to this conversation. It began with FunSized’s old roommate:

“We were doing sit ups one night,” FunSized tells me. “And EVERYTIME she went up, she would queef.”

“Is that the sound a loose vagina makes?” I ask. “Because everybody queefs.”

Therefore, we decided: The sound of a loose vagina.

From the loose vagina, we moved on to the next sexual organ that Catholic schools had taught us next to nothing about: the uncircumcised penis. Which I apparently know so little about, that spell check got me. I was unaware of how to spell uncircumcised.

I attempt to analogy my thoughts on the uncircumcised penis.

“I feel like it probably looks like a shot gun. You know, that weird little thing on it that you slide up and down to load?”

Locked and Loaded.

FunSized cracks up. “Haven’t you heard that it just looks like a hot dog?”

I agree. “I have, but I have a hard time picturing that.”

Complete with Condiments.

“Anyway,” FunSized continues. “I always figured it was just like an extra layer. Like a sweater or something.”

“So,” I ask. “If I just put like an old Barbie sweater on a regular penis, it’ll look like an uncircumcised one?”

Sweater courtesy of “Winter Fun Barbie”

By this time, FunSized and I are practically peeing our pants from laughter. Have we learned anything, really? No. Wait. I’m wrong. We did learn something.

“I feel like a loose vagina and a uncircumcised penis would be friends and have conversations.” I tell her.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah! The vagina would be like, ‘Have sex with me! It’ll be like a hotdog in a hallway!’ and the penis would be all, ‘IT’S OKAY, I have a bun!‘”

I’m sorry. I lied. We really didn’t learn anything after all.

*Update: I forgot to mention that the creation of this post, or moreso, the writer’s block prior to the creation of this post lead to the #angwypenii hashtag on the Twatter network.